Talking about this role, starring John C.Reilly said: "This vampire is so different from the traditional vampire in my mind. I read the original work specially for it. I found that this character has many characteristics different from ordinary vampires. It is more like a human than a vampire. In front of children, he is sometimes even a teacher. Although the author has endowed this character with so many different qualities, he still looks like a devil. For example, he has bloodsucking fangs, a scar on his face, red hair and a pointed tail, that's all. I didn't refuse such a costume. Anyway, this is the costume of the character. This reminds me of Faust. That's my favorite play. I always think of the devil in the same dress. I played opposite several children under the age of 20, and watching them shivering on the set, I couldn't help thinking of myself when I was young. But these children have little experience, sometimes they don't know where to put their hands and how to play with other actors. After all, working with them is still very tiring. "
However, according to director paul weitz, this costume is well founded, and it is not a simple costume. He said, "That's what the original author Darren Shan wrote in the novel. Red hair and pointed tail are symbols of age. Riley's vampire is 220 years old. The long dark life changed his hair from black to red, and also made him grow a satanic tail. However, he is not Satan at all. When you saw him, he was teasing the children in the circus. This is the uniqueness of this film. The author of this novel and I both strive to make a relaxed and funny movie. So I deliberately shaped the image of vampires in a fun direction. This movie is PG- 13, so there are few violent scenes in it. Besides, it's a comedy, which is why I asked Riley to star. Besides Riley, willem dafoe, Ken Watanabe and salma hayek are all my actors. It's really a pleasure to get these people together. In the past, I didn't even dare to think about such a good thing. "
Hard shooting process
Although the whole movie is a light and humorous comedy, the shooting process is not as funny as the last movie. In these difficult shooting processes, the first problem is makeup. Many actors need to wake up their faces for "plastic surgery" in order to modify their roles to meet the standards of novels and directors. Riley had a chin pad treatment, and he scratched a deep scar on his face. For some actors with special roles, it is useless to make up or dress, so we have to use body double. For example, Japanese actor Ken Watanabe plays a tall man. Ken Watanabe himself is already 1.83 meters tall. However, in some distant scenes where two actors appeared at the same time, because he could not walk on stilts or stand on the bench, the crew had to find a basketball player with a total height of 2.09 meters from the local basketball team. This 2.09-meter-high, 265,438+00-pound behemoth really shocked other actors and directors at the other end of the camera. So that in the later scenes, as long as there are no facial shots and body language shots, Weitz will find this basketball player to replace Ken Watanabe.
After solving the makeup problem, there are still some action scenes that need to be completed by directors and actors. Riley, who is not good at fighting, suffered a lot this time, because in this movie, Riley plays a vampire and has a lot of action scenes to deal with, while Riley, who is good at comedy, naturally suffered a lot when performing these scenes. He said: "The vampire fight is really surreal. They can move in the air in an instant, with great power and supernatural ability. These elements make me feel like I'm dreaming, not making a movie. Because I often forget to bring my sharp fingernails, I always cut myself. There are many shots that I need to jump from a height, and I sometimes fall-all this is the result of not watching action movies often. Sometimes when I see two people fighting in the air, I always think it's two birds. Hanging wires also made me suffer a lot. Because I have never hung a steel cable before, my balance is not good, and I am often hung to death. I'm always black and blue. However, when I saw that I could fly around the screen, I still felt very cool. "